Anatol Blog

Running a screen printing business means making big purchasing decisions. In addition to choosing a press, a dryer and perhaps a flash cure unit, you’ll need to choose a screen exposure unit.

Athletic apparel, primarily team jerseys and workout gear, has long been the bread and butter of screen printing shops. With “performance” fabrics, favored for their lightweight feel and quick-drying properties, becoming more and more popular for weekend athletes and everyday wear, screen printers are seeing more and more requests for use of these fabrics.

When it comes to your screen printing production, a flash cure can either be your best friend or your worst enemy — it can be a big help or it can slow you down. Understanding the different types of flash units and their appropriate uses will help you get the most out of them.

Most screen printers who open their own shops don’t come from a management background, and the hiring and retaining of good employees can be one of the most intimidating aspects of owning and operating your own business.

When you think of screen printed products, shirts are probably the first item that comes to mind. But you definitely shouldn’t stop there! There’s a whole world of different materials waiting to be screen printed, and expanding your offerings will help you attract new customers and keep old ones coming back for more.

In the screen printing world, a myth surrounds specialty inks. Screen printers often avoid puff, glow-in-the-dark, metallic and gel inks because they’re considered difficult to work with.

Now that you understand the different types of screen printing emulsions and have selected the right emulsion for your shop, it’s time to talk about using those emulsions the right way to prepare your screens for a successful print run.

A quality screen print requires a quality stencil. That means using the right screen printing emulsion for your job. So what types of screen printing emulsions are there? How are they different? How do you determine which type of emulsion to use?

Almost nothing poses as big of a challenge for screen printers as printing white ink on black or other dark-colored shirts. White-on-dark prints can come out rough, splotchy or blurry, and they can be challenging to fully cure.

To create a photorealistic image in screen printing, most printers rely on four color process. That involves printing the four basic print colors — cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) — in fine, half-tone dots.

Water-based inks have grown in popularity due to their soft hand feel and lower environmental impact. For printers accustomed to plastisol inks, printing with water-based inks can provide some challenges because water-based inks don’t apply and react the same way plastisol inks do.

A screen printing shop needs a good air compressor, one that can fully power its screen printing presses and other equipment. Without the right air compressor, your machine can jolt and bounce. That can affect the quality of your prints and cause undue wear on your screen printing press.